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News & ArtsMonday, June 1, 2009
Books Anyone Want to Split the Cost of an ISBN Scanner?
Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 3:50 PM
Google Blogoscoped ran a video today about a Google Books feature that I didn't realize existed: You can enter the books you own into your personal Google Books Library using a USB-port ISBN scanner. I know that there are lots of places online to keep track of your own library, but what I didn't realize is that using Google Book Search, you can then search the contents of your own library.
This seems like a useful thing: I don't know how many times I've tried to locate a quote in a book and torn through all the books on my bookshelves to no avail. If I actually scanned all the books I own—which would probably take about as long as it took to load all my hundreds of CDs onto my first iPod—Google would be able to tell me the title and page number of the quote I was looking for. For me, this is a drool-worthy application of Google. Here's the video.
1
Use the iSight camera on your Mac laptop with this software:
http://www.evological.com/evobarcode.htm…
to read barcodes!
http://www.evological.com/evobarcode.htm…
to read barcodes!
2
The latest crop of smartphones have the ability to (or have apps that let you) scan barcodes with the camera. You might even be able to do this with a webcam.
4
I have Delicious Library on my mac. I just exported a CSV of the ISBN numbers, pasted it into the field, and my library is now online and searchable! Very easy.
And Library works with the built in camera, so no need to buy external reader. Not connected to Delicious Monster, just a happy customer.
And Library works with the built in camera, so no need to buy external reader. Not connected to Delicious Monster, just a happy customer.
5
LibraryThing has the old CueCat barcode readers available for just $15: http://www.librarything.com/cuecat
They aren't great readers, but they're significantly cheaper than any other dedicated barcode reader you'll find.
They aren't great readers, but they're significantly cheaper than any other dedicated barcode reader you'll find.
6
My god--I'll never need to think again! But so many of my books are ancient used editions. Is there any help for that? I know Google books has some fairly ancient texts on there, so perhaps....
7
I just tried it -- I tossed in two books, one obscure and one widely read, and neither were actually keyword-searchable. So this isn't really that helpful, and it won't be until publishers allow full-text versions online (read: never).
8
Seconding the recommendation for CueCat - I got one off of eBay 4-5 years back on Ebay and it's great. Used it for scanning books and CDs. Glad to see that there's a database to use that info with now.
9
That's funny, considering the CueCat recommendations here that, acc.to Wikipedia, the CueCat received the dubious distinction as one of "The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time" according to PCWorld Magazine. The CueCat's critics said the device was ultimately of little use: wrote Jeff Salkowski of the Chicago Tribune, "You have to wonder about a business plan based on the notion that people want to interact with a soda can," while Debbie Barham of the Evening Standard quipped that the CueCat "fails to solve a problem which never existed."
11
@9: Originally the CueCat had some ridiculous shit in there that would encode the results, so you'd have to go to their page to decipher it. It didn't take long for folks to figure out how to disable that functionality, though.
12
These are the things that the serious douchebags use at the Friends of the Library Booksale. I think they're hired by used bookstores to pick up books based on some sort of cost vs. average selling price rule of thumb. Don't get me wrong - I love used bookstores. And I love gadgets that help me engage in my own book collection in new and neat ways. I just really hate those douchebags with these ISBN scanners. They need to stay the hell away from that booksale.
13
@12 -- there is software and scanners you can get for BlackBerry's that a lot of internet booksellers use. If you ever have a garage sale, plump middle aged ladies with horrible fashion will come and molest the barcodes on all of your books, and then attempt to talk you down since "They can't make any money on them."
14
That list of everything that interests and entertains you is valuable information. Librarians work hard to keep it private. Will Google?
18
You misunderstand, Paul.
Your whole library could burn to the ground and it would have no effect on your ability to search on Google Books. You don't even need to own a single book.
Either the quote you are looking for is in Google Books, or it isn't. Nothing you do at home with a bar code scanner has any bearing on that.
All that this does for you is if you search "Call me Ishmael" and Google Books says that comes from some book, Moby Dick, the fact that you previously scanned your library saves you the trouble of having to look through your bookshelves to see if you have a copy of this Moby Dick in your collection or not.
I mean, maybe that's all you're saying and it excites you. What excites me is that you can often find what book a quote came from even if you don't have a copy, never read it, and never heard of it before.
Your whole library could burn to the ground and it would have no effect on your ability to search on Google Books. You don't even need to own a single book.
Either the quote you are looking for is in Google Books, or it isn't. Nothing you do at home with a bar code scanner has any bearing on that.
All that this does for you is if you search "Call me Ishmael" and Google Books says that comes from some book, Moby Dick, the fact that you previously scanned your library saves you the trouble of having to look through your bookshelves to see if you have a copy of this Moby Dick in your collection or not.
I mean, maybe that's all you're saying and it excites you. What excites me is that you can often find what book a quote came from even if you don't have a copy, never read it, and never heard of it before.
19
@18: While that is true, Paul is talking about a situation (familiar to me, at least) where you know the quote is in your own library somewhere, but you don't remember enough of it, or the keywords are so general, such that searching the entire internet would give you too many hits to realiistically comb through.
Having a "my library" search filter is indeed a useful search tool.
Having a "my library" search filter is indeed a useful search tool.
20
I have goodreads account and did something similar to the reader above. Just downloaded the CVS file and copied and pasted the ISBN column into the 'import books' area. Some ISBN are not recognized but only a handful. Something I don't mind doing manually.
21
Goodreads and LIbraryThing both let you export your existing books as a CVS file, and from there you can probably get your book list into all kinds of aps.
I actually used the CueCat from LibraryThing (notice it in the thread above that it was a "bad" product). But for 15 bucks, it did the trick and I was able to scan in must about all of my books with bar-code ISBN numbers. I could have typed them in, but after a couple of hundred I would have stopped, and that wouldn't have pleased my insane impulse to have every single book I own in the LibraryThing database. The scanner worked fine. I loaned to it a friend and they were able to do scan their books in as well. Many of my older books, however, don't have ISBN bar-codes, and so had to be entered by hand.
I actually used the CueCat from LibraryThing (notice it in the thread above that it was a "bad" product). But for 15 bucks, it did the trick and I was able to scan in must about all of my books with bar-code ISBN numbers. I could have typed them in, but after a couple of hundred I would have stopped, and that wouldn't have pleased my insane impulse to have every single book I own in the LibraryThing database. The scanner worked fine. I loaned to it a friend and they were able to do scan their books in as well. Many of my older books, however, don't have ISBN bar-codes, and so had to be entered by hand.
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